Google has won an appeal against a fine imposed by the European Union in 2019 by online advertising practices considered abusive. The company, according to the Financial Times, has managed to convince members of the General Court of the European Union to annul the fine of 1.5 billion euros.
The court did appear to agree with the commission’s assessment that Google blocks advertising rivals from serving its platform. However, it argued that the commission failed to take into account all relevant circumstances when assessing how long the company had been engaging in anti-competitive practices in online advertising.
The European Commission ruled in 2019 that Google had banned publishers from placing competing ads in search results and displaying them in search results pages between 2006 and 2009. It changed its rules slightly in 2009, but only removed the restriction clause from its contracts in 2016. The fine imposed in this case was higher than expected, because the commission apparently took into account the duration and severity of the violations.
According to Google, this case “It affects a very small subset of text-only searches placed on a limited number of publisher websites. We made changes to our rules in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, even before the Commission’s decision. We are pleased that the court acknowledged that there were errors in the original decision and that they have quashed the fine. We will carefully review the full decision.«.
Meanwhile, the commission has stated that it will study “We will carefully review the verdict and evaluate the next steps to take.«The court that overturned the sanction is not the highest court in the EU, so they still have the opportunity to appeal.
This is just one of several fines imposed on Google by the European Commission in recent years. Earlier this month, the EU’s top court upheld a separate $2.7 billion fine imposed in 2017 for abusing its dominant position in the search engine market by promoting its own shopping comparison site in its search results, while displaying its competitors’ results in lower positions.